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June 6, 1933: First Drive-In Movie Theater Opens

On this day in 1933, eager motorists park their automobiles on the grounds of Park-In Theaters, the first-ever drive-in movie theater, located on Crescent Boulevard in Camden, New Jersey.

Park-In Theaters–the term “drive-in” came to be widely used only later–was the brainchild of Richard Hollingshead, a movie fan and a sales manager at his father’s company, Whiz Auto Products, in Camden. Reportedly inspired by his mother’s struggle to sit comfortably in traditional movie theater seats, Hollingshead came up with the idea of an open-air theater where patrons watched movies in the comfort of their own automobiles.

Richard Hollingshead

He then experimented in the driveway of his own house with different projection and sound techniques, mounting a 1928 Kodak projector on the hood of his car, pinning a screen to some trees, and placing a radio behind the screen for sound. He also tested ways to guard against rain and other inclement weather, and devised the ideal spacing arrangement for a number of cars so that all would have a view of the screen.

The young entrepreneur received a patent for the concept in May of 1933 and opened Park-In Theaters, Inc. less than a month later, with an initial investment of $30,000. Advertising it as entertainment for the whole family, Hollingshead charged 25 cents per car and 25 cents per person, with no group paying more than one dollar.

The idea caught on, and after Hollingshead’s patent was overturned in 1949, drive-in theaters began popping up all over the country. One of the largest was the All-Weather Drive-In of Copiague, New York, which featured parking space for 2,500 cars, a kid’s playground and a full service restaurant, all on a 28-acre lot.

Drive-in theaters showed mostly B-movies–that is, not Hollywood’s finest fare–but some theaters featured the same movies that played in regular theaters. The initially poor sound quality–Hollingshead had mounted three speakers manufactured by RCA Victor near the screen–improved, and later technology made it possible for each car to play the movie’s soundtrack through its FM radio.

The popularity of the drive-in spiked after World War II and reached its heyday in the late 1950s to mid-60s, with some 5,000 theaters across the country. Drive-ins became an icon of American culture and a typical weekend destination not just for parents and children but also for teenage couples seeking some privacy. Since then, however, the rising price of real estate, especially in suburban areas, combined with the growing numbers of walk-in theaters and the rise of video rentals to curb the growth of the drive-in industry. Today, fewer than 500 drive-in theaters survive in the United States.

Over 400 cars attended Hollingshead’s opening night on June 6, 1933. The feature was “Wives Beware” starring Adolphe Menjou. Menjou, having married unwisely, feigns amnesia with the help of physician Allister and finds a new identity as a car salesman. The philandering faker flirts with a number of women but is finally found by a friend of his deserted wife. The friend, herself long enamored of the miscreant Menjou, persuades him to return to his wife, whose pregnancy was unknown to him. An unpleasant little comedy, despite a strong cast.